


Five Years

by shiftylinguini



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Bottom Harry Potter, Clubbing, Drinking, First Time, Getting Together, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Recreational Drug Use, Top Draco Malfoy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-23
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-19 05:57:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13117479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiftylinguini/pseuds/shiftylinguini
Summary: For Draco, December means finding somewhere he can lose himself in the thrum of a crowd and the throb of music ― and Potter.It always means Potter now, too.





	Five Years

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Maccadole](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maccadole/gifts).



> Mac, I love you. If I was any kind of decent friend, I would not be giving you an angst fest on Christmas eve, but I'm a shit, so here we are! Happy (very belated!) Birthday, and Merry Christmas you lovely fucker!

***

They’re not a couple the first time it happens.

Draco isn’t sure how he ended up in this place, in a Muggle club in a huge steel and concrete warehouse, but as soon as he steps through the metal doors, he loves it. His boots click on the hard floor, but he can’t hear that over the filthy pump of the music that blares out of visible speakers, loud enough to make his bones rattle. It’s Christmas Eve, 1998, and Draco can barely stand to think, can’t stomach his own company, let alone that of his family. He loves his mother, his father, but the war sits on his back like a crippling weight, getting heavier every time they open their mouths. He can’t stand the usual traditions, the tree, the decorations. It makes his skin crawl, sets an anxious churning in his belly that he wants to excise. His friends feel it too, the overwhelming knowledge that they lost, that they were on the _losing_ side, and that they almost brought their own world toppling down on top of them. Draco can’t talk about it, can’t forgive himself. He knows he deserves to feel like this, displaced in his own home and repulsed by his name and all those who bear it. He knows he doesn’t deserve to escape it. 

Tonight, though, he wants to forget it, just for a little while, and so here he is after following the breadcrumb trail of whispers in the pub he was in earlier. The dark clubs reeks of cigarettes, of spilled booze and sweat from the dancers under the lights that swell and ebb, their movements both languid and erratic at the same time. It’s an overload of sensations, an onslaught on his senses; it’s everything Draco hoped for. 

He would never have imagined Potter would be seeking that, too. 

Draco hasn’t thought about Potter since the war; he has obsessed about him. Beyond the fire licking at their heels, beyond the school full of torrid magic and spilled blood, Draco imagined a happy life for Potter. A home with the Weasleys, a ring on the Weaselette’s finger, a hushed hug in the middle of the night when nightmares woke them before they fell back to untroubled slumber. The thoughts always made Draco’s lip curl, a sneer half made of scorn, and the rest of jealousy ― of Potter, of the Weaselette, of how happy they deserve to be together. Draco’s hated the version of them in his head enough to see red. 

The reality of Potter standing against the wall to Draco’s left, drink dangling from his lax fingers and vacant gaze aimed at the dancers, is quite different. His face is thinner than Draco remembers, his clothes baggy and ill-fitting. His hair is still unkempt, the sight so familiar it makes Draco’s chest lurch in something that feels like nostalgia before he shoves it away. The people Potter's with seem on friendly terms, though he’s barely participating in their shouted attempts at conversation; Draco recognises none of them, from Hogwarts or the wizarding world. He isn’t even sure if Potter knows them. Potter looks like he’s half in the room, but mostly elsewhere and Draco feels an absurd amount of glee when Potter spots Draco walking over to him then stands a little taller when he recognises Draco. There’s a flash of anger over Potter’s face, then an indignant kind of defensiveness as he looks towards the people next to him, rolling joints with sloppy fingers, then back at Draco. It all disappears quickly enough though, when Potter seems to decide it’s not worth the attempt to explain what he’s doing here on Christmas Eve, to justify why he’s getting high in a corner with people whose names he doesn’t know. The set of his jaw makes Draco think Potter's decided he doesn’t have to justify it, and Draco is relieved; if Potter did, then Draco would have to do the same. Instead, Potter only licks his lips, his oversized t-shirt and denim jacket pulling away slightly to reveal his collarbone as he leans close enough that Draco can hear him. 

“I fucking hate Christmas,” Potter shouts, jaw set and pupils blown. He’s high already, or he’s pissed, Draco realises straight away, and above all he’s _Potter_. He’s the last person Draco would expect to see drinking away the holidays in a shithole in the arse end of London, but Draco stands next to him all the same, watches the dancers then takes a hit of the joint that’s passed to him by a woman with the longest hair Draco's ever seen. He didn’t expect Potter, but as they move towards the dancers, joining in with the sway of anonymous bodies, he can’t really imagine doing this with anyone else. 

He and Potter weren’t a couple that night ― nothing even close ― but Draco still thinks of that as where it began. The music is loud, and the drinks are harsh, and together, barely speaking for the entire night yet never leaving each other’s sight, they ignore when the clock ticks past twelve and Christmas lands upon them. No one knows him here, knows them, and while they don’t dance together they keep close until the sun rises and the crowd spills out onto the cold pavement, exhausted and dishevelled and ecstatically numb.

Draco is so hungover by noon he can barely make it to Christmas lunch with his mother’s fraying neurosis, with his father’s stony silence. It’s horrible, the tension between them all making Draco nauseous in ways last night’s booze could never compete with, so he thinks instead of Potter in the alleyway outside the club, bleary-eyed and exhausted as he smiled at Draco and nodded, then stumbled off to his own day of Christmas hell. Somehow, he feels a little bit better knowing he’s not the only one feeling like shit this morning, not the only one who dreads the day.

Draco almost smiles ― not quite, but close enough ― when he thinks of it, and finally manages to swallow down his food, then wash it down with his flat champagne.

***

New Year’s Eve, 1999, Potter kisses him for the first time.

“The world is ending tonight,” Potter says as they lean against the hard wall of the club. The corrugated steel is enough to hurt Draco’s back, and he likes it, the ridged bumps warring with those that run down his spine. He needs to eat more, he thinks, before he sniffs and looks down at his drink. He despises looking like a waif, but then again, he hardly makes the effort to look after himself these days. 

Perhaps that can be his New Year’s resolution, he thinks wryly, knowing it won’t make a difference. 

“The world is ending?” Draco shouts in response, craning closer so he can launch the words into Harry’s ear. It’s just covered by a flop of hair, carelessly pushed away from Potter’s cheek. The lights from the roof switch from dark to technicolour as they fly over them both, and Potter doesn’t look quite like himself. He never does here, never looks like the boy Draco remembers. There are shadows under his eyes and over his face, which Draco can’t recall being there at Hogwarts. Maybe they were, and he just never noticed. There was a lot he never paid attention to, too convinced he was a princeling destined to be king of the world. Turns out he was just a spoiled brat, standing on the wrong side of history. His lips twist as that old wound reopens, his pride and self-worth plummeting before he can stop it. He squints at Potter in the rapidly changing lights rather than think about it; he’s allowed to not think about things like that when they’re here, when they’re out like this. 

“Yeah.” Potter’s smiling, and it’s lopsided, tipsy and wry. It’s the closest he’s ever come to smiling at Draco, and Draco clings to it, for reasons he can’t quite understand. “Y2K,” Potter continues, and Draco shakes his head in confusion. It’s half past eleven and he’s not that drunk yet, but he’s getting there. He still doesn’t know what Potter’s talking about, though. “The machine’s are going to glitch out,” Potter gestures with his drink, in vague and circular motions, “computers will rise up and take over. We’re fucked,” he finishes, almost happily, and looking even happier when he realises Draco still doesn’t have the vaguest idea what Potter is on about. 

“You mean the Muggles are fucked,” Draco replies, and instantly knows he’s treading on touchy soil here. They don’t mention the M word, not usually. They tiptoe around it like the verbal landmine it is. Potter doesn’t rise to the bait though, only runs his tongue along his teeth, over his gums (Draco wonders again if he’s taken something, wonders what it was and where he can get some too) before shrugging. Potter waves his drink again, maybe in annoyance or to dismiss the whole conversation, and some of it spills on his fingers, down onto his wrist. As Draco watches, Potter switches his drink to his other hand, raises his hand to his lips and sucks at the spilled liquid on the side of his thumb. He looks up at Draco, the club lights glinting off the spilled alcohol, off Potter’s glasses and the intense eyes behind them, and Draco feels it, sudden and sharp: _attraction_. 

He doesn’t know if he’s felt it for Potter before, and simply masked it or stopped himself from recognising it for what it was. What he does know is that Potter clocks it almost immediately. Hard not to, when he’s looking right in Draco’s eyes. Draco’s no idiot; he’d notice it as well if someone standing right next to him, close enough to touch, suddenly flushed under his gaze, their eyes darker and unable to meet his own. He feels ridiculous, suddenly, exposed and foolish, and he doesn’t know where to look ― so he keeps staring at Potter’s mouth, not bothering to hide what he’s feeling. He might as well get the humiliation over with quickly. 

Draco braces himself for laughter from Potter, for scorn or derision and the pending shame that will follow it. Draco has yet to be with a guy, but he’s known for a while that he’s wanted to. He’s yet to try with someone, but he knows what it would feel like to be rejected, what the hot humiliation would feel like as it burned his cheeks. He clenches his jaw, knows his expression is turning surly and challenging, and can see it mirrored on Potter’s own even despite the alternating darkness and flashes of coloured lights in the room. Draco knows that _Potter_ will reject him. 

There’s no world the two of them could live in which he doesn’t. The war is over, but there’s a line still firmly drawn on the ground between them, each man on either side. Draco thinks he might have one foot on Potter’s side now, but the other is still firmly planted, immovably so, on the _wrong_ side. Draco knows this every morning when he wakes up, every night when he goes to sleep. There’s no way Potter isn’t aware of it, no way he could let even a toe creep over the line to meet Draco on some kind of middle ground. 

There’s no way he could be interested in someone on the wrong side. 

Draco’s not prepared for Potter to see things differently. The laughter never comes, nor do the scoffed remarks, the barbed insults about Draco being bent. Potter barely reacts at all, his expression curious and hard to read in the mess of club lights, until his hand slowly grips the front of Draco’s shirt, pulling him forwards. Their lips meet before Draco really even processes what’s about to happen. 

The kiss is quick, harder than it should be and deeply uncertain on both sides. Draco freezes, his mind racing to piece things together as his adrenaline begins to surge, and he feels Potter begin to withdraw from him. That’s all Draco needs to reciprocate, he thinks, to jar him into action as he kisses back with clumsy but determined movements. _We’re good at this_ , Draco thinks, a little bit hysterical as Potter kisses him back, and maybe they are, or maybe they’re terrible at it. Either way, Draco doesn’t want to stop. 

They don’t notice when the countdown begins, only pulling apart when the crowd starts to chant, when the escalating shouts of Three, Two, One! Become impossible to ignore. Potter’s lips are kiss swollen, and Draco’s fingers are tight in the front of his top, his other hand twisted up underneath the too-large denim jacket Potter always wears. They stare at each other, both breathing too fast to pretend to be calm, but it’s not panic that Draco feels. It’s something far more exhilarating. 

“The world didn’t end,” Draco says hoarsely after another charged moment. The dancers surge on one end of the room, and the two of them stay sequestered in their corner, not hidden from view but out of it all the same. 

Potter’s shoulders shake as he laughs silently. 

“No,” his voice almost sounds a little sad, a little amused. “It never does,” Potter says and there’s that smile on his face again, almost giddy in its slant. Draco kisses him before it has a chance to disappear. 

They don’t get off in the club, although Draco knows they could if they wanted; he’s seen couples doing that and more, and get away with it. He doesn't find it distasteful, but he’s not tempted to become a spectacle for strangers to covertly gawk at. He’d bet real money on Potter being the same. Instead, they kiss until the sun comes up, in between buying rounds of drinks and talking to people whose names they won’t remember tomorrow, or in an hour. By the time they leave, there’s a mark on Potter’s neck, Draco’s shirt untucked from wandering hands. There’s no doubt in his mind they’ll be leaving together. 

Daylight has well and truly broken when they stumble into Potter’s house ― a mansion, no less, in the middle of fucking London, and isn’t _that_ just fitting ― shedding clothes as they move to Potter’s bedroom in a graceless rush. 

Draco’s never done this before, but Potter has, and clearly more than once. He easily tells Draco what to do ( _like this, here, move my legs to your shoulders and ― yes, fuck_ ), what he wants and likes ( _more, yes, harder, do you want ― oh **fuck** , I'm going to ―_). Potter comes before Draco does, his voice loud and his brow creased as his hand flies over his own cock, Draco’s fingers tight as he presses Potter’s thighs to his own chest and fucks him as hard, as fast, as he dares. Potter’s toes curl, fingers digging into the back of Draco’s neck as he comes over his own hand, hips lifting off the bed and against Draco in a filthy grind. 

Draco doesn't come first, but he’s not far behind, his orgasm hitting him hard enough to knock him off balance. Or maybe it’s the look in Potter’s eyes that does it, so different without his glasses ― or the fact they’ve been awake for nearly twenty four hours.

Draco falls asleep before he really has a chance to think about it. 

When he wakes, it's still early morning, and he feels seedy but not hungover. His mouth is dry, his muscles tired, and he blinks into the pillow, shoulder pressed against Potter’s. It comes back to him slowly, in heady memories. He’s in Potter’s bed, naked and next to him. He fucked Potter last night, in the soft light of dawn. 

When he turns to look at Potter, he finds he’s already watching him, his eyes tired and purpled underneath but alert all the same. His hair is messy as he lays on his back, red marks on his neck from Draco’s lips. Draco knows he’s wearing the same marks on his own skin, on his collarbone, his shoulder. He swallows, gaze shifting pointedly to Potter’s neck and he watches Potter’s expression grow knowing. 

“Rough night?” Draco croaks, his voice dryer than expected as he tries to joke. Potter cracks a lazy smile, lifts an arm and drops it on the pillow above his head. He shrugs one shoulder. 

“Could’ve been rougher,” he says easily, and Draco feels his face heat, a flush creeping over his chest and neck. 

“Touche, Potter,” he manages after another minute of feeling his blood rush south at Potter’s implication. 

“You can call me Harry, you know,” Potter says. “I figure if we’ve had sex, we can...dispense with the formalities.” 

Draco shifts a little, stubbled chin scratching at his own hand as he rests his face down on his arms. “It’s not a formality, Pot ― Harry,’ he corrects. “It’s a habit.”

“Well,” Potter sniffs, yawning into the back of his hand then shutting his eyes. “It’s a habit we can change. Probably.” He’s silent for a beat. “Draco,” he adds quietly. Draco feels something stir in his chest, something hopeful and exciting and frightening, and he lets it wash over him.

“Whatever, Harry,” he murmurs, the sheets slipping low on his hips as he turns into his back, mirroring Harry’s position and closing his eyes too. 

They sleep the rest of the morning and then afternoon away. The first day of the year 2000 slips by them as they doze, then fuck, then roll out of bed to eat a scraped together meal. They joke about the world failing to end, about who will get the first shower, until dusk falls and Draco knows he should leave. They don’t make plans to see each other again, but Draco knows they will. Sooner, or later, he knows they’ll do this again. He’s usually someone who thrives on control, on knowing what will happen and when and where, but he finds he doesn't need this here. It's strange, and new, and he lets the pleasant thrill of uncertainty buzz in his stomach as he dresses to leave. 

The wind is cool on Draco’s cheeks as he walks down Potter’s ― _Harry’s_ ― street, to Apparate back to the Manor. Draco lets the cold, winter air run briskly over his skin, his steps lighter than they have been in months before he rounds the corner into an alleyway and turns on his heel, disappearing with a soft _pop_.

***

They see each other sporadically from there, the meetings falling into an easy, unplanned routine neither of them wants to break and which lasts years.

Usually they bump into each other, paths crossing on Diagon Alley or in the Leaky. Those times can be awkward, although they always acknowledge each other. Sometimes they part ways easily, other times the conversation is more stilted; Harry always seems different in a daylight crowd, and not because he doesn't want to associate with Draco ― because the eyes of strangers feel heavy on him. Each time, though, they get a little more familiar with each other, a little more comfortable. 

Each time, there’s a tap at someone’s window that night, an owl with a message to meet in a place that’s dark, and loud, where they can be alone in a crowd. 

More often than not, though, they seek each other out in one of the clubs that each knows the other frequents. 

Sometimes, they go months without seeing each other. 

Draco gets a job at a law firm, a position barely above that of a clerk. His pride takes a hit, but it pays the bills, lets him move out of his parents' financial grip. He likes paying his way, renting his own flat. He leaves the walls bare, likes the way his feet feel against the hardwood floors. 

Draco likes bringing Harry back here, and fucking him through the night, then talking until neither can keep their eyes open. About nothing ― Harry can’t stand oranges, but he loves marmalade, Draco can’t sleep on the left side of the bed, no matter where or when or who else is in it ― and about everything. About Draco’s parents, about the scars on his chest. About ghosts in The Forest on a mild May night. 

Draco can’t sleep properly for weeks after that one. 

2003, the anniversary of May 2nd, they fight. 

It’s ugly. 

Usually the entire month of May, and often part of June, is so fraught with tension they both know they have to avoid each other. But this year they don’t, the desire for company or a sparring partner overtaking common sense for both of them as the memories of the war rise up around them, and badly. 

The fight never turns physical, but their words land like blows, and Harry’s hardest of all. His anger is terrible, his hands shaking with blind fury and his chest heaving. Draco’s never wanted so badly to lash out as cruelly as he can, his pride bristling and his stomach twisting at the fact that most of what Harry is saying is right; Draco did refuse help, he did let them into the school, he _did_ try to kill ― 

It still cuts like a knife to hear Harry scream it in his face. 

Draco knows his anger at Harry's words comes from guilt. On any other night, even, when it rises inside him, Draco knows the source is remorse, those pangs of longing for the choices he didn't make. It's a helpless feeling, and anger rides in its wake, hot and misdirected. Draco quickly realises Harry feels the same. Draco can’t understand _why_ ― Harry’s the hero, the saviour, the fucking _victor_ ― but he thinks guilt isn't always rational. Draco’s never been the hero; he doesn't know what it would feel like to come back from a war when others didn’t, to watch their orphaned son grow up in a cruel mirror of the childhood Harry is still mourning. 

Understanding where Harry is coming from, though, still doesn’t stop Draco from lashing back at him until they’re both hoarse from shouting. 

They don’t fuck that night. Perhaps there could be catharsis in heated sex, in reconciling afterwards, but they're too exhausted. The fight feels like catharsis enough, and when they do have sex in the morning it’s slow, both of them still warm from sleep and a little raw from the night before. Draco spoons up behind Harry, an arm around his middle and his lips against the nape of his neck as he grinds against him. When Draco comes it’s with a sigh as quiet and sated as Harry’s gasp is loud, and neither of them move to clean up, to get out of bed, until midday. 

Harry comes back that night, and then the next again, spending the evenings in Draco’s bed in a way they haven’t done before; in consecutive nights, tangled up with each other and kissing like they’ve gone back three years and have only just discovered it. 

Draco’s never apologised to Harry, for anything he did, he thinks one night after Harry falls asleep, naked and pressed against Draco’s side. Draco doesn't want to do it in the middle of a fight, or in the exhausted, red-eyed aftermath of one when Harry looks, and Draco feels, like a feather could knock him over. The rest of the time, Draco just can’t find the words. ‘ _I’m sorry_ ’ feels so laughably small, so insufficient, and changes nothing. At least, Draco doesn't think it will.

He’ll apologise one day, though, he thinks as Harry’s breath warms his neck. 

Even if it takes him another five years, Draco will do it.

***

Christmas Eve that year, they meet in the alley behind the warehouse club.

“Thought I might find you here,” Harry says as he walks towards Draco, his hands in the pockets of his green blazer and his black scarf wrapped high over his neck. Draco smiles as Harry’s boots crunch against the snow. He’s not dressed for clubbing, at least not how he usually dresses. The blazer looks new, fits better than the usual denim jacket. Draco likes it. He’s not dressed as he usually would to come here, either, he thinks. They’ve been coming here less and less, and yet seeing each other more. Draco knows it means something ― means a lot ― but he’s waiting for Harry to take the lead on this one. 

And so, he came here instead, following last year’s footsteps and yet not quite feeling the same pull. 

“Nostalgia,” Draco says eventually, gesturing at the building. The warehouse is still sporting parties for those who want to escape Christmas Eve, running from whatever demons lurk in their family closets. Draco can hear the music, faintly, knows what it will be like inside. “Some habits die hard, Potter,” Draco says with a smirk. 

“Clearly,” Harry says with a laugh. He stomps his feet against the cold, raises his shoulders then drops them again. He seems jitterrier than usual, and yet more relaxed at the same time. He still doesn’t like Christmas, Draco knows this. Harry’s told him why, in bits and pieces. His stories of cupboards, of hunger and loneliness, always come in uneasy fragments and Draco struggles to make a story of them. His blood boils with what he can piece together, though, but he keeps it to himself. Harry’s not telling him so Draco can get angry on his behalf, so they can compare stories. Draco understands what it’s like to feel the weight of a family that let you down at a time of year when every song, every smile, is so saccharine sweet it makes his teeth grind, and Harry knows that Draco gets it, too; that's why he’s tells him. This year, it doesn't seem to be sitting as heavily on Harry’s shoulders.

“So we going inside, then?” Harry asks brightly, and yet with zero urgency and none of his usual keenness to slip inside the doors. Draco waits a moment, weighing his answer carefully and considering which way he wants to steer this. 

“I suppose we ought to, yes,” he eventually settles on. Harry frowns. 

“Ought to?” He faces Draco, one shoulder resting against the brick wall and their faces close. “Why ought we to?” he asks, half confused and half smiling. 

Draco shrugs, and he hopes it looks casual; inside, his stomach is churning with anticipation. 

“Because. You, me, this place.” Draco forces himself to hold Harry’s eye contact, not to worry at his own lip. “It’s a tradition.”

Potter laughs at him again. 

“A tradition,” he says, smiling outright now. It comes to him so easy these days. Draco knows this because he’s seen Harry every day, more or less, for the better part of the last two months, and spoken to him most days before that. “I don’t think that’s what people usually call meeting up regularly and sleeping together.” Harry waits a beat, pulling his hands out of his pockets, and rubbing them together in an almost nervous gesture. “I think that's called, you know,” Harry blows on his fingers, eyes focussed on his own hands, “being a couple.” 

Harry looks up, lips still poised above his cold fingers and his eyes bright and intense. Draco’s stomach flips, queasy with joy, and he knows this doesn’t solve all their problems ― he still hates this time of year, and Harry even more so, and they’ll fight again, of that he is certain ― but it means something all the same. Maybe they’ll go inside tonight, like they usually do, or maybe they’ll go somewhere else; maybe they’ll do nothing, or drink cheap champagne in Draco’s flat and then fuck on the sofa. He doesn’t care, really, what they do, Draco realises as he lets his fingers run down the lapel of Harry’s blazer, to the softer jumper underneath ― as Harry kisses him. 

For the first time in five years, Draco thinks as he kisses Harry back, he might not need to drown out how he’s feeling this year. 

He thinks he might feel all right.

***

**Author's Note:**

> say hello to me on[tumblr tumblr tumblr!! ](https://shiftylinguini.tumblr.com/)<3


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